The semiconductor industry has recently experienced technological advances that have permitted dramatic increases in circuit density and complexity, and equally dramatic decreases in power consumption and package sizes. Present semiconductor technology now permits single-chip microprocessors with many millions of transistors, operating at speeds of hundreds of millions of instructions per second, to be packaged in relatively small, air-cooled semiconductor device packages. Related to the technological advances in the semiconductor industry is a corresponding growth in the use of such technology in virtually every aspect of the economy. This widespread growth has led to a demand for heightened production of semiconductor devices having increasingly complex architecture, as well as a heightened demand for providing access to such technologies for a large portion of the general public at an affordable price.
The increasing demand for products utilizing semiconductor technology has resulted in increased competition among manufacturers of semiconductor products. One of the biggest challenges to semiconductor manufacturers includes the production of reliable, complex devices while keeping costs at a marketable or even reduced level. As technology advances and architecture becomes more complex, the manufacturing processes for semiconductor devices and integrated circuits increase in difficulty. The increase in difficulty is accompanied by increased time and value put into the manufacture of the devices. The ability to achieve the manufacture of such devices in an efficient and cost-effective manner is paramount to the success of any semiconductor device manufacturer and to the promulgation of products employing new technologies at an affordable price.
One semiconductor manufacturing system that is typically used in semiconductor processing, such as for CMOS devices, is a wet chemical bath. One problem associated with wet chemical baths is the copper cross-contamination of the wet chemical equipment. Copper existing in the wet chemical solution tends to contaminate the tools, often requiring redundant tool sets. The requirement of redundant tool sets increases the cost of the manufacturing process. The difficulty, cost, and destructive aspects of existing methods for CMOS wet chemical processing are impediments to the growth and improvement of semiconductor technologies.